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Godfellas
| image = | image_size = | episode = 52 | prod_code = 3ACV20 | season = 4 | airdate = March 17, 2002 | runtime = 30 minutes | director = Susan Dietter | guests = | writer = Ken Keeler | storyboards = | subtitle = Please turn off all cellphones and tricorders | cartoon = | preceded_by = "Roswell that Ends Well" | followed_by = "Future Stock" }} Plot During a noisy attack led by a space pirate, Bender, trying to find some peace and quiet in the torpedo tube, is launched into interstellar space beyond the reach of Fry and Leela. As they were going top speed when they fired Bender, Bender was therefore going faster than the Planet Express ship's top speed and thus is impossible to recover. After an asteroid crashes into him, a civilization of tiny humanoids, the Shrimpkins, grows on Bender and they begin worshiping him as a deity. At first, Bender enjoys his new-found status and has his followers brew what for them are vast quantities of "Lordweiser" beer. The tiny denizens living on him begin praying for rain, sun and wealth: Bender attempts to heed their prayers, failing comically and harming the Shrimpkins in the process. Eventually, the Shrimpkins who migrated to his backside feel their prayers are unheeded and become atheists. The micro-civilization is ultimately and simultaneously destroyed when the front- and back-side factions build and use atomic weapons out of Bender's nuclear pile. Bender soon floats toward a cosmic entity who can signal in binary. It behaves somewhat like a sophisticated cosmic computer resembling a galaxy with colored stars, who is "user friendly...my good chum". The God Entity is nearly omniscient: when Bender mentions his experiences with the Shrimpkins, the God Entity responds, in an encouraging tone, "Yes, I saw... you were doing well until everyone died". The God Entity advises that the use of deitylike powers requires a "light touch" so that those one intends to aid will neither lose hope nor become dependent on supernatural intervention. During Bender's encounter with the God Entity, Fry and Leela search for a way to contact Bender. His odor couldn't be detected by the Smell-O-Scope and everyone tries to tell Fry to get over Bender, even bringing in Helper. Fry refuses to give up, thinking that he could try something desperate and crazy. After getting no help with Father Changstein Al Gamal at the First Amalgamated Church, he learns from the Robot Gypsy of the Monks of T'shuva, a sect of secretive monks who use a combination radio telescope/amplifying transmitter to search for God in space and with which the monks hope to contact God so that they may "utter unto him a short prayer". With Leela reluctantly tagging along, Fry makes his way through the Himalayas and finds the monastery. However, the monks refuse to delay their search for God to allow Fry to search for Bender. When Fry demands that he use the telescope, the monks react and put up martial arts stances. Leela stands up in Fry's defense, only for the monks to admit that their practise of martial arts is purely for meditation and they are pacifists. Leela then directs them into the laundry room. Fry spends the next three days searching for Bender, while the imprisoned monks eat their own shoes for sustenance. Fry gives up the search for Bender and hits the telescope controls, which happen to aim the telescope at the God Entity, who hears Fry say, "I wish I had Bender back". The entity then throws Bender all the way back to Earth, with a parachute and a peremptory farewell, just as Fry and Leela are leaving the monastery. After a sizzling embrace, Bender is convinced from his encounter that "God" does little to help people and insists on travelling back to the monastery to free the trapped monks. The God entity chuckles and repeats the advice he gave to Bender: "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." Ongoing Themes Death, near-death, mutilation * Fry and Leela destroy two space-pirate space-ships. * Bender is fired from a torpedo tube and his body smashes through two walls of a space-pirate space-ship. * A pea-sized asteroid whizzes through Bender's head, leaving a temporary, pea-sized hole. * Although different individuals suffer in different ways (Malachai loses an arm, many Shrimpkins are mangled and others die of pestilence while manufacturing booze for Bender, etc.), the entire Shrimpkin population is ultimately obliterated by nuclear war. Doppelgängers * To help Fry with his loss, Amy and Hermes bring him a new friend, a robot called "Helper". * The Robot Gypsy channels Fry's friend "Bonder" Category:Season Three Category:Episodes Category:Bender Episodes